The Lesson of the GitHub DDoS Attack: Why Your Web Host Matters
By Adam Stern | Hosting Journalist
Surviving a cyberattack isn’t like weathering a Cat 5 hurricane or coming through a 7.0 earthquake unscathed. Granting that natural disasters too often have horrendous consequences, there’s also a “right place, right time” element to making it through. Cyber-disasters – which can be every bit as calamitous in their own way as acts of nature – don’t typically bend to the element of chance. If you come out the other side intact, it’s probably no accident. It is, instead, the result of specific choices, tools, policies and practices that can be codified and emulated – and that need to be reinforced.
Consider the recent case of GitHub, the target of the largest DDoS attack ever recorded. GitHub’s experience is instructive, and perhaps the biggest takeaway can be expressed in four simple words: Your web host matters.
